


Saving (dis)grace

by Askellie (NadaNine)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AU Crossover, Attempted Undertale Genocide Run, Flirting, M/M, Slow Burn, SpicyHoneyMustard, Underfell, underswap - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 06:44:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11708976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadaNine/pseuds/Askellie
Summary: At the end of the day, Papyrus couldn't save anyone, not even himself.But right as he's on the verge of giving up, two universe-hopping skeletons show up to show the genocidal human the meaning of LOVE, and maybe teach Papyrus something about the other kind of love to give him a reason to keep going.





	Saving (dis)grace

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was a truly delightful commission from @sapphire-sphinx, who wanted to see me take on one of my plot bunny adoption ideas, which was extra awesome because I have been so thirsty for Papcest and SpicyHoney lately! *_* The core idea was:
> 
> “I wish I’d saved the piece of art that inspired this idea, but one trait I rarely see attributed to Swap!Pap is for him to have the innate Papyrus desire to be liked by everyone and to have lots of friends. Usually this gets passed over to Swap!Sans, but I’d love to see a fic where Swap!Sans actually does have lots of friends and is generally liked by everyone and Swap!Pap plays it down but is desperate for recognition and acceptance and he wishes he was cool like his bro. (In my Swap headcanons, Sans is still the older bro too, so little brother Pap fails at interacting well with others)
> 
> And then cross-universe shenanigans happen and Swap!Pap meets the Underfell brothers and…they’re just so awesome?!?! Sure, the edgy look is a bit try-hard, but damn, Underfell Paps is so badass, and Underfell Sans is dark humoured and hilarious and Swap!Pap just!?!?!? Wants to be noticed by them?!?! And be their friend?!?!!?
> 
> So Swap!Pap develops something of a hero complex for the Underfell Bros, and wants desperately to impress them (without making it seem like that’s what he wants, damnit Pap, play it cool, be suave or they’ll laugh at you).”
> 
> This one’s gonna be a slow-burn with a lot of sexual tension and a happy ending, so buckle up. :9
> 
> Content Warnings: Eventual SpicyHoneyMustard [Underfell Pap/Underfell Sans/Underswap Pap], mentions of non-permanent character deaths (genocide run), violence and graphic injury, hurt-comfort, flirting, angst.

  
“Come on, kiddo!”

_***MISS*** _

“W-why don’t you just-”

_***MISS*** _

“-put the knife down, and-”

_***MISS*** _

“-we can talk, o-or…maybe do a puzzle?”

_***MISS*** _

“Wouldn’t that be more fun than killing me?”

_***MISS*** _

Papyrus let out a sharp, almost hysterical laugh as he dodged again, the knife barely missing his bones and slicing effortlessly through his hoodie instead. “Guess not, huh?”

The human stared at him, their face fixed in a stiff, gruesome smile, but their deadened expression was terrifyingly at odds with the unholy enjoyment glittering in their eyes. They were enjoying themselves, watching Papyrus’s movements gradually grow slower, his panting breaths coming heavier as they slowly wore him down. In the beginning, they hadn’t even been able to get close enough for their weapon to be a threat. His blue magic had kept their small body back towards the entrance to the Judgement Hall, sometimes even throwing them right out of the room and by extension the battle, trying to discourage them from moving forward.

They were proving very _determined_ , however, and each time they came back at  him with renewed ferocity, pushing against his hold on their soul, closing the distance by torturous inches until Papyrus was forced to duck and weave between their reckless slashes, unable to keep them at bay.

He could see bruises on their knees from where his bones had tried to trip them, and a painful looking gash on their forehead from one of the times he’d thrown them against a pillar, but despite how thick the dust was on their clothing he couldn’t find in himself the intent to truly harm them. He just didn’t have it in him. He wasn’t a warrior, like Alphys. He’d never had the same aspirations towards joining the guard as Sa-

His hands faltered in guiding his next attack, tremors shooting down his arms, and almost as if they’d been waiting for this sign of weakness the human pounced, their knife sweeping with blinding speed towards his hip. His scrambling dodge was clumsy, and he cried out in agony as the blade bit deeply into his femur, stealing a breathtaking amount of his HP. Even with Sans’s magnificent bandana to bolster his defence, the human was overflowing with LOVE. The attack was devastating.

Papyrus stumbled backward, watching his dust and marrow spill out over the golden tiles, profaning them. The cut was deep enough to reach the core of the bone, and he knew without testing it the leg would no longer carry his weight. He couldn’t run, couldn’t dodge.

He was fucked.

“Hah…” he gasped, struggling to keep himself upright. “Oww…g-geeze, kid. G-guess this last _stand_ is gonna be my _leg_ -acy, huh? I…haaah…w-was really _hop_ -ing you might change your mind, but…”

His vision was swimming with dark spots of pain and exhaustion. He wished he could  know if he’d managed to buy enough time for the Queen to prepare herself. The small, white-furred monster he’d shooed through the doors to go warn her hadn’t seemed the most reliable, but there hadn’t been anyone else left. Everyone was either in hiding, or–

–dust. Like his brother. Like Papyrus was about to be. Laboriously, he lifted his head, watching the human stalk closer. They didn’t rush, either expecting one last trick from him, or simply relishing their victory. Papyrus’s soul quivered violently in his chest. He was absolutely terrified…but also awash with a strange sense of peace. He didn’t have to try any more. He didn’t have to fight to live on in a world without Sans. He’d done his best, just like Sans always told him he should, and though his best hadn’t been good enough, there was no shame in that. He let out a deep breath, his trembling limbs calming, going still.

“If we were ever friends, kiddo,” Papyrus breathed, lowering his head back down so his neck was in easy reach of their knife, “be a pal and make it quick, okay?”

He wouldn’t defend. One more hit would easily take the rest of his HP. His sockets drifted shut as he waiting, deciding he didn’t want to know the exact moment the deathblow came for him, and–

“ENOUGH OF THIS! NO VERSION OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS SHOULD ACCEPT DEFEAT IN SUCH A WEAK, PATHETIC MANNER!”

Papyrus didn’t even have time to flinch from the outraged shout before he was shoved violently backwards, losing his footing. He would have landed brutally on his tailbone if he didn’t fall precisely into a pair of waiting arms that quickly adjusted their hold to accommodate his wounded leg, holding him securely.

“Hey there, sweetheart, I wasn’t expecting you to fall for me just like that.”

Papyrus opened his eyes and found himself staring into the playful grin of another skeleton. The tears he hadn’t shed when he’d found his brother’s dust welled up painfully in his sockets. “S-sans?”

His voice quavered pitifully with hope, but almost immediately he knew in his soul this wasn’t his brother. Sans didn’t have a mouth of jagged teeth and a false gold canine. His eyelights were large and azure, not narrow and crimson. Even so, the resemblance in the round contours of this new skeleton’s skull was so uncanny that a small sob wrenched out of him without permission. The shark-like smile dimmed a fraction, the other skeleton’s eyelights flicking to the side.

“You got this, bro?”

“OF COURSE!”

Papyrus turned his head to where he himself had been standing a moment before, and in his place was…another skeleton? This one was tall and imposing, with dark armor and a ragged red scarf that billowed behind them as if a dramatic headwind had found its way into the hall just for that purpose.

“HUMAN!” A clawed, gauntleted hand pointed accusingly at the small, dusty child who Papyrus had momentarily managed to forget about. They continued to stare blankly, their expression unchanging despite the fearsome demeanor of their new opponent. “YOUR REIGN OF TERROR ENDS HERE. I WILL NOT PERMIT YOU TO GO ANY FURTHER.”

The tall skeleton’s head turned slightly. Papyrus blinked in bewilderment because something about the other’s angular cheekbones and thin jaw looked strangely familiar, but before he could think further on it, the other’s fierce scowl turned upward into a smug, predatory smile.

“YOU WILL WANT TO STAY WELL BACK, BROTHER.”

“Don’t hafta tell me twice,” the skeleton holding Papyrus agreed amiably, hefting his charge with effortless strength. Despite not being much taller than Sans whom he so much resembled, the short skeleton easily carried Papyrus towards the back of the hall, carefully setting him down near the doors to the throne room.

Papyrus felt strangely numbed by the unexpected turn of events, his soul having been wholly prepared for death. He barely reacted as the other skeleton knelt to investigate the wound on Papyrus’s femur, prying back the stained fabric of his cargo shorts with surprisingly gentle hands.

“You’re not Sans,” Papyrus murmured quietly, finally acknowledging the unhappy truth despite the way his soul twisted in grief.

The skeleton glanced up, his expression a mix of sympathy and encouragement. “Nah, sweetheart, but don’t worry. We’re here to help.”

A choked, hysterical laugh threatened to bubble its way out of Papyrus’s throat. “Y-you can’t. Their LOVE’s too high.”

“My bro ain’t exactly a slouch in that department either,” the skeleton said with a cheerful wink, his tone almost aggressively buoyant. It was at odds with the grim cant to his fanged smile. “Hey, I’m gonna need to rip these. Brace yourself.”

The tips of his phalanges had been sharpened into claw-like points. Papyrus had only a moment to notice this detail before they were being used to rip open the seam of his shorts, clearing the fabric away from the wound. Papyrus let out a whimper, dark spots dancing across his vision. Now that he didn’t have the human’s murderous intent drawing all his focus, the pain shooting up his leg was incredible.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” the other skeleton told him reassuringly, taking a firm hold of Papyrus’s leg above the injury as if to stop the steady drip of marrow…that only worked on fleshy creatures, right? But the compression did seem to inhibit the pain slightly so Papyrus wasn’t willing to complain even though he definitely didn’t know this stranger well enough to feel comfortable with that hand lingering so high on his femur. He couldn’t even bring himself to be embarrassed about the way his shorts were hanging half-off, leaving his pelvis practically exposed.

With a grunt of effort, the smaller skeleton ripped a new strip off the bottom of his own red t-shirt, and used the cloth to bandage the cut. Small wisps of magic wound around his fingers but Papyrus only barely felt it nudging his HP upwards.

“Sorry. M’not much of a healer,” the skeleton admitted with a self-deprecating grin. “But that should hold you ‘til they’re done.”

“You should go help him,” Papyrus insisted in a low voice, turning his head to try and catch sight of the human and their new opponent, but the small skeleton had situated them in the shadow of one of the pillars, tucked out of harms way. “That human…they won’t stop, not even if…”

Papyrus trailed off uncertainly, but the other skeleton looked unconcerned, remarking, “Not even if they die, right?”

Papyrus flinched, staring at the other with wide, shocked sockets, but the smaller skeleton just returned the look with a dark, knowing grin. “Yeah. So you’re the one who knows about that this time, huh? Should have figured since you were here, but…”

The skeleton seeming to be speaking more to himself than Papyrus, his sentence trailing off thoughtfully, unfinished. A dozen desperate questions tried to tumble out of Papyrus’s mouth all at once, resulting in a flustered, incoherent noise that seemed to prompt the smaller skeleton back to attention again. He waved a dismissive hand.

“Don’t worry about Boss. He’ll be fine. In fact, he’d kick my ass if I-”

_**< RELOAD>** _

“-kick my ass if I tried to get in on his fun.”

Papyrus blinked, a little dazed by the odd echo of the other skeleton’s voice. He seemed to notice it too, tilting his head quizically. “Huh. Guess it’s started.”

Papyrus tensed. “What’s-?”

_**< RELOAD>** _

“-sta…started?” He ended up stumbling over his word, momentarily losing his place as the timestream rewound on itself.

“Heh heh. Boss is teaching the brat a little lesson,” the other skeleton said with a wicked chuckle. He held Papyrus’s gaze intently. “Now we ain’t got much more time here, sweetheart. The human-”

_**< RELOAD>** _

“-isn’t gonna be able to get past Boss. They’ll figure it out eventually. When-”

_**< RELOAD>** _

“-that happens, they’re gonna reset. Can you-?”

_**< RELOAD>** _

_**< RELOAD>** _

_**< RELOAD>** _

The question was lost in the dizzying fury of time whipping back and forth, the slight differences in each iteration mangling the words beyond recognition.

“What?” Papyrus asked, gripping his skull and furiously trying to focus.

“A message!” the other skeleton said insistently. At some point he must have taken Papyrus’s hand. The sharp points of his phalanges were digging into Papyrus’s wrist. His own blunt fingers gripped back just as hard, making the bones of the other’s palm creak against his hold.

“Oh!” Papyrus said, finally getting it. He reached into the pocket of his hoodie, pulling out his phone. “Here-”

_**< RELOAD>** _

_**< RELOAD>** _

_**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _ _**< RELOAD>** _

_**< RESET>** _

Papyrus jolted awake, his skull still spinning with a violent maelstrom of images; gold and red and dust and red and more dust and-

“Ugh,” he groaned, flopping back down on his mattress and pulling the thin cover over his head, taking refuge in darkness and quiet until the overwhelming intensity of the episode began to pass. His skull ached, but that was nothing new. Neither was the exhaustion. It was impossible to get a good night’s sleep when his dreams were so vivid it didn’t feel like his mind had switched off at all.

At least it was still early, otherwise he’d have been able to hear Sans downstairs making breakfast and powering through his morning regimen. Papyrus debated the virtues of dozing for another hour or two until Sans inevitably came to drag him out of bed, but something nagged insistently at the back of his thoughts like he’d forgotten something important. He spent an uncomfortable minute trying to place the odd sensation, giving it a chance to coalesce into a more tangible concern. When nothing to mind he decided to distract himself until it either came to him or went away entirely.

Habitually, he reached for his phone, his blindly questing fingers finding it easily on the floor beside his mattress where he usually left it. He flipped it open, squinting against the bright glare of the screen. He was immediately confronted by an angry chirp and a warning message.

_YOUR **[REDACTED]** INBOX IS FULL AND CANNOT ACCEPT INCOMING MESSAGES._

_YOU HAVE [1] INCOMING MESSAGE._

He stared at it for a long, unsettled moment. He’d set up the [REDACTED] inbox on a whim, as an experiment. There was never supposed to be anything in it. Not unless he had some reason to believe someone was messing with the flow of time…or if he was trying to prank himself across time and space.

God he hoped he was pranking himself.

With a trembling finger, he tapped the screen to open the inbox. The **[REDACTED]** folder could only hold two hundred messages. Any more than that and he’d have had to break the laws of space-time just for the sake of capturing inter-dimensional messages to himself. The **[REDACTED]** box existed in a non-fixed inter-temporal signal space, attached to a number only his phone could reach. The idea was that it would hold messages even if some kind of anomaly was to make the flow of time suddenly unwind. The contents of the box would stay fixed, unchanging, even if the events leading up to the creation of the message never occurred again.

It was only a theory. Something he’d come up with to assuage Undyne’s paranoia about her unexplainable scans of the timeline. He was sure the box had been empty yesterday, so how was it suddenly full?

He thumbed to the latest voicemail message and played it, pressing the phone to the side of his skull. He sucked in a tight breath as his sight dimmed and the familiar contours of his room was overlaid with the distorted shapes of a different location. His phone-vision didn’t work as well with messages, but this was even worse than usual. The scenery was grainy and sapped of color, like a weak signal coming through a poorly tuned television.

It was even more weird to see a shadowy figure who could only be himself crouched down against what might have been either a tree or a rock.

“I tried…again,” his voice rasped, coming from the phone rather than the hunched figure. The voice was scratched with static. Papyrus had never bothered to consider what the sound quality of an intertemporal message would be like. He had to listen hard to make out the words.

“…should have been easy…just tell him…stay out of Snowdin. Go anywhere…keep him busy…should have trusted myself, huh?”

Every few words faded indecipherably, but he was startled by a sudden sharp, bitter laugh that sounded downright eerie in his own voice. He sounded upset…or deranged.

“It doesn’t work. It never works. Every time…” Instead of focusing on the words, Papyrus tried to make out more of the image his phone-vision gave him. The surroundings were unidentifiable. Between the thick trunks of trees and the peppered, pale ground it could have been anywhere around Snowdin forest. The only thing that stood out was lying at his other self’s feet. There was a circle of fabric lying on the ground, the ends tied off in a familiar bow. The monochrome vision didn’t show him what colour it was, but Papyrus could make a painful guess. The cloth was streaked with something too dark to be snow.

“Gonna go…talk to them. Try…make them stop. Or die trying, I guess.” Another awful, wrenching laugh, and an even more unsettling pause before his other self finally said, “Hug Sans for me,” and hung up.

Papyrus let the phone drop, rolling over and huddling into a tight ball. Stars, that was…horrible. His head still rang with the static, and he clenched his sockets shut to try and dispel the ghostly image of the vision. He was torn between scrambling out of bed to find his brother, or hiding back under his covers and pretending he’d never checked the damn message. The implications were too enormous and unbearable to think about.

But that hadn’t been the last message, had it? Warily, Papyrus rolled back over and retrieved his phone. The warning about the incoming message was still flashing insistently in the top corner. After a moment’s indecision, he deleted the oldest record in the [REDACTED] box, deciding if the rest of the messages were like that first one, he was unlikely to ever listen back that far. With space cleared, the new message finally dropped into his inbox, its recorded date and time a long string of unidentifiable characters that made him uncomfortable the longer he stared at them. It took several minutes for him to work up the courage to play it.

“Hey Sweetheart!”

Papyrus started. That cheerful, booming voice definitely wasn’t his own. His vision flickered again, a new room taking shape around him. He could recognise the judgment hall immediately, the image much clearer than it had been for the previous message. This one even had colour, though it was weak and de-saturated, as if someone had applied only a light splash of watercolour over the scene. Searching around, Papyrus caught sight of himself sitting on the ground, staring up in mixed bewilderment and awe at a – a skeleton?! – who was holding the phone.

“You don’t know me yet, but me an’ my bro are gonna be the best thing that ever happened to you.” The strange skeleton offered the Papyrus in his vision a saucy wink, patting his shoulder. The other Papyrus looked, if anything, even more confused. “Keep an eye out for us in the next reset, okay? We’re gonna need your help.”

He hung up, putting an end to the brief window into that – Past? Future? – other timeline. Papyrus was utterly flabbergasted. Who the hell was that? Why the hell had his other self let him leave a message? It was supposed to be his own private line to himself, to inform and prepare in case of emergencies. How was he supposed to trust a message like that, from a stranger, and with such vague, nonsensical instructions!?

But…

Papyrus clutched a hand over his chest feeling…something. A fleeting impression of gratitude and hope and longing rolled up into a nebulous tangle in his soul. His messages were supposed to be his only means of holding onto information in case the timelines rewound, but maybe other things lingered as well because something about that strange scene definitely moved him even though he couldn’t specifically remember anything.

He stared at his phone again. That first message had been grim. Something was definitely happening with the timelines. Something terrible, that threatened everything, including Sans. He didn’t know what to do.

_Keep an eye out for us in the next reset, okay?_

The sheer number of messages he’d sent himself suggested that no matter how he tried to prepare, he couldn’t change what was coming. He couldn’t do anything. The readings he’d seen from Undyne’s timeline scans were starting to make a terrible amount of sense. One cynical voice in his head told him that any effort he made was probably futile. He would only disappoint himself if he tried, but-

_We’re gonna need your help._

Maybe today it would be worthwhile getting out of bed after all.


End file.
